


Silent World

by queenlua



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Cuckolding, Exhibitionism, F/M, Hurt/Comfort (kinda), Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:20:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28683186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenlua/pseuds/queenlua
Summary: “Leanne would help you, if you’d let her,” Micaiah says.“And Sothe woulddiefor you, if you let him,” Naesala snaps. “That doesn’t mean you just let it happen, does it?”***During the march toward the Tower of Guidance, Micaiah contemplates the future: her own, Sothe's, and Daein's.Naesala isn't helping.
Relationships: Micaiah/Naesala (Fire Emblem), Micaiah/Sothe (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 19
Collections: Nagamas Gifts





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seasaltmemories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasaltmemories/gifts).



> Written for seasaltmemories for the 2020 Nagamas exchange.
> 
> Thanks to krad for the beta.
> 
> Please mind the tags/rating, thanks!

There are no secrets between Micaiah and Sothe. But there are spaces.

Those spaces are the places they don't go, it's the spaces they don't talk about, spaces better skirted or avoided altogether. Like how Sothe tries not to talk about Ike, and how he never talks about who and how many of their countrymen he killed. Like how Micaiah doesn't tell him about the Black Knight, or what he'd said to her.

And, of course, there is the largest space of all—the time they lost each other.

Which is what they call it, _the time we lost each other_. When I was with the Greil Army, after we lost each other. When I was fortune-telling in Begnion, after we lost each other.

They _have_ talked about that time—there are no secrets between them—but they have only talked about it once. It was when Sothe finally found her, in the back alleys of Nevassa, after so many years of searching. Micaiah had nearly fainted from the giddy rush of the reunion, the shock of seeing how Sothe-the-boy had grown into Sothe-the-man, and seeing him _well_ , seeing him _unhurt_ , seeing him at _all_ —and it should've just been that, should've just been the rush, the joy. But then Sothe asked _why did you leave, what happened to you_ , and because there were no secrets between them, Micaiah told him. She told him she was Branded, said she couldn't burden him, said it was better to leave him—

Those words flared like a spark in a dry field. In an eyeblink, Sothe was shouting. In an eyeblink, Sothe was _shaking_ —Micaiah tried to quiet him, because passersby were staring, but he wouldn't be quiet. Not until he'd shouted himself hoarse, well after Micaiah had pulled him into the dubious privacy of the collapsed lean-to that she had been calling home.

"Swear you won't leave me again," he'd asked, and Micaiah didn't answer. How do you change, after a whole life of leaving? She couldn't promise to become something she didn't know—it'd be like promising to become a stonemason, or a queen, or a bird.

But Sothe's hands clenched around her wrists, so tightly she almost cried out, and he straightened himself so he could stare at her better. "I swear I'll never hold you back," he said, "and if I'm ever a burden you can cut me away yourself, but until then—please, _swear_ you won't leave me again. Or I'll leave right now, because, I can't—I can't—"

He was crying, she realized. She hadn't noticed because the light was so poor. She hadn't noticed because she had never seen him cry before. That's what the shake in his voice was. That's what the gleam in his eyes was.

Oh Sothe, she thought. And her desperate, traitorous tongue spoke before she could think better of it: "I swear."

So far, Micaiah has kept her word. And ever since then, they have called it _the time we lost each other._

They say it as though it were an earthquake, a flood, a sudden illness. As though it were something no one did, and no one could control, and was certainly no one's fault. These things happen sometimes. Things happen sometimes.

(But Micaiah did do it. She did that to him. She knows it in her bones. She'll spend her whole life knowing it.)


	2. Chapter 1

Every time Micaiah raises her hand, Naesala is there first.

She notices it during their first battle with the Disciples of Order. A soldier would move to charge her, and she’d lift a hand to murmur the ancient words, move to call down Thani’s light —but then a blur of black feathers would get there first, tackling the man, armor and all, into the dirt.

Sothe notices, because Sothe is always there, too. But he’s _meant_ to be there at her side; Micaiah wouldn’t have him anywhere else. Naesala, though... She doesn’t even know the crow king, not really, except by reputation, and now by his battle-prowess. Which is considerable, and visceral, in a way she's not used to. Naesala doesn't have Sothe's pinpoint-precise dagger strikes, or Micaiah's bolts of light. What he has is a jagged spear for his mouth and razors for his hands. What he has is good for tearing, ripping, and maiming. Micaiah sees him tear a man's arm off in midflight, and she sees him gut a halberdier so deeply his intestines spill out across his beak—

It’s gruesome, she thinks. It’s how he's _built_ , the more pragmatic side of her says. This is war; the man is made of weapons; was she expecting him to be delicate?

She would like to dismiss Naesala's hovering as an anomaly, some brief bout of overprotectiveness. But skirmishes with the Order are frequent enough that the pattern becomes unmistakeable. Between Naesala and Sothe, Micaiah is hardly able to land a blow anymore. Which is a waste of resources, at the very least; Micaiah knows full well she’s one of the best weapons the Dawn Brigade ever had. But also—

"Why?" Sothe asks at last, one night after a battle, when he and Micaiah are in their tent alone. "Why is he _doing_ that?"

Micaiah knows the _he_ and the _doing_ without having to ask, and she can only sigh. It's the not-knowing that bothers her, more than anything—she's not used to it. Ever since she glimpsed Naesala's heart _once_ , in passing, during their first encounter, the crow king has kept himself as sealed off as a tomb. Most people can't do that. With most people, she can simply... know.

A week into their march, she manages to catch Naesala alone, late at night, around the last embers of the campfire. Sothe is already asleep, and Micaiah's already _tried_ to sleep—tried and failed, which is why she's outside again. May as well stare at some stars, instead of the roof of her tent. May as well get some air.

She sees Naesala's silhouette as she nears, standing alone by the soft glow. He notices her too—she sees how his wings shift, how he stiffens. He's already turning to leave when she calls out his name:

"King Naesala."

He turns back to face her. “How can I help you, dawn maiden?” he asks, with a mocking little bow.

And with a mocking little grin, too—he knows what this is about, she realizes.

But he's going to make her say it. Okay. “You’ve already gifted me a tome to defend myself," Micaiah says. "You know my talents on the battlefield. And yet, every time I’m about to fight an enemy, you’re there before I can land a single strike.” She pauses, thinking of the right word: “It’s unnecessary.”

Naesala waits, watching, expressionless. When she doesn’t say any more, he shrugs. “You _are_ the commander of this army, you know. If you want me deployed elsewhere, make it an order.”

Micaiah frowns. That would only make him _move_. That wouldn’t make her _understand._

Naesala smiles. “Ah, see, that’s your problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“If _Sanaki_ were leading this little operation she’d tell me to get lost. If _Skrimir_ were leading this he’d have punched me already.” Naesala stretches his wings and steps closer: “And yet you corner me at night just to sniff that it’s _unnecessary_.”

When he stands over like this, she has to tilt her head upward to look him in the eyes. “Why?”

“Why what, dawn-girl?”

“Why are you so intent on guarding me?”

Naesala thinks for a moment. “Let’s just say I’m protecting my investment.”

 _What investment?_ is the obvious question. So obvious Micaiah doesn't bother asking it. She waits.

But Naesala doesn't answer, just yawns and stretches hugely. “We’ve got an early march, don’t we?” He feigns rubbing his eyes. “I really ought to be getting my beauty sleep, you know. Good night, Micaiah.”

 _Wait,_ she tries to say, but he's already shifting—and then he's already raven, so _fast_ , a faster shift than any laguz she's ever met. In an eyeblink and a whorl of feathers, he lifts away, and she watches his dark shadow pass over the moon, once, before he disappears entirely into the dark.

* * *

The next morning, the Silver Army’s war council convenes, and asks Micaiah about supply lines.

“We marched with enough provisions to reach Nevassa unaided,” Tanith explains, flattening out some number-riddled parchment onto the fat stump that's serving as the roundtable for their meeting. “Those provisions are nearly spent. We should have another supply train en route, but, well.” Tanith gestures at the air, the silence, the eerie stillness. “Ordinarily we could supplement our rations with forage, but the forage here is—”

“Poor,” Micaiah interrupts. “I know.” Her doing. Daein winters were harsh in the best of times, let alone during a war, let alone in the remote little hamlet where Castle Nox stood. She'd levied all the grain and dried meat she could, from the local villages, to feed her army—levied them until they protested, until they said they'd starve if she took anymore, and she took a little more even after that, sick with dread. Then, she'd had her army forage the countryside bare, hunting every deer, beaver, rat and opossum they could manage—they all tasted the same if you put enough salt on them, or cooked them into a stew. Even with all that, her army had been half-starved by the time the Laguz Alliance arrived—so, yes. The forage is now poor.

“There’s a few villages up ahead,” Tanith continues. “The scouts report there’s a few granaries among them.”

Ah. Now Micaiah realizes why Sigrun’s expression is so dour.

And now, Micaiah realizes, she really _must_ be the commander—even Sanaki is looking at her, not deferential exactly, but expectant. Of course Sanaki is still empress, Micaiah thinks fiercely, of course Micaiah isn't anything like a queen, it's just—convenience. She's just a military leader. Just for now.

Micaiah only barely keeps a stammer out of her voice. “I don’t think we can go in and _take_ from their stores—”

“Well, we can’t exactly ask permission, can we?” Naesala, of course it's Naesala. He stretches and shakes his wings as though rousing. “Look, if we don’t prevail in the Tower of Guidance, we're all dead _anyway_ , stone-people or no. I don’t understand the problem. Just plunder some storehouses and be done with it.”

Micaiah’s head feels very heavy; for a moment she wonders if Yune is returning to speak through her. She would be grateful for the interruption. Let someone _else_ argue with Naesala’s too-clean logic, and wake her once it's over. But no—it's still just the two of them, and a looming headache, probably. Micaiah takes a deep breath—

“No,” Sothe cuts in. “We’re not looters. We’ll take only what we need. We’ll leave coin for anything we can, with a note explaining what we took. And we’ll keep an accounting of it all, so that once we’re done at the Tower, we can turn right back and resupply them.” He casts each of the gathered councilmen a hard glare in turn. “No one starves on our account.”

It is so simple, when he says it like that. Why hadn't she been able to make it that simple? “Thank you, Sothe,” she says, resisting the urge to give his hand a squeeze (not here, not in front of everyone). “And, King Naesala—” she inclines her head toward him. “Your people are hunters, aren’t they?”

Naesala sighs. “Not very _good_ ones. We’re more, ah, opportunistic.”

“Try. Even a few deer would go a long way with an army this size.”

* * *

Micaiah knew hunters—none like Naesala, of course, but beorc hunters, from her days in the capital. Each week, the hunters would come to the market in Nevassa, hauling whatever quarry they’d taken the week before: rabbit furs, salted quail meat, quills from pheasant’s feathers, sometimes even the hide of a wolf. Micaiah liked them, more than the well-dressed merchants who talked too fast, and more than the hucksters who shouted out deals and chased you down if you dared show interest. The hunters were quiet, solid figures all. The hunters knew their worth.

Each week, Micaiah and Sothe went to the market, too—Sothe picking pockets while Micaiah pretended not to notice, and Micaiah reading fortunes and selling trinkets for coin. Micaiah always picked a spot next to the falconer, a stout, good-humored man who always brought his bird with him as he peddled whatever quarry they’d captured this week. He liked people who liked his bird, and Micaiah liked the bird very much, a silver-feathered hawk he called Beauty.

Once, Micaiah got too close to Beauty, and and the bird startled, leaping from her perch to fly. "Oh," she cried, oh no, if the hawk was lost on _her_ account—

But the bird's leather tether held her fast by her leg. Of course it did. Even fettered and flailing, the hawk was magnificent—each wingbeat so strong it swept wind into Micaiah's hair, and her amber eyes gleaming with each sun-bright cry.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to startle her."

But the falconer only chuckled. "She does this all the time." The man waited and watched, until the bird tired, until her fierce eyes dimmed. Then, gently, he tugged on the leather, and pulled her in close. "There, there," he murmured, while the hawk clambered onto his gloved hand, and then back onto her roost, where she roused her feathers in one great shrug, and was content.

Micaiah thought of the hawk whenever she was bold. Like when she healed a pox-afflicted girl on a whim, right in the middle of the marketplace on a hot Saturday afternoon, using Sacrifice where anyone could see. It was a stupid risk, a wild instinct, but the girl was _suffering_ , she couldn't do _nothing_ —

And when Sothe rounded on her, rebuked her, when he reminded her what was at stake, she imagined herself as the flustered hawk. She was tethered and impatient, beating her wings against bright sky—and Sothe was there, Sothe was always there, waiting to pull her back.

She wondered if that hawk would know where to go, without that falconer to hold her. Would she fly too far? become lost? strike the wrong quarry and hurt herself?

And she thought of the hawk when Sothe held her at night, after a battle, a council-meeting, after any number of exhaustions. _There, there,_ the falconer had murmured. _It's alright,_ Sothe would say, and she would let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding at all.

* * *

Naesala _does_ manage a hunt, him and the handful of ravens left in his retinue. Just a few gangly, rawboned bucks, but it's better than nothing.

“I didn’t even have to lift a talon,” Naesala announces with something like pride, after he dumps the carcasses at Micaiah’s feet. “Just chased them into an ice creek and followed them until they froze to death, the poor dumb beasts.”

Micaiah stares at one of the bucks—his eyes glassy in death, with icicles clinging to his every tuft of fur, his mouth lolled open in a silent bellow. She had thought that Naesala had snapped their necks, had thought the death was bloodless as a matter of efficiency, maybe even kindness. She wishes she were still able to think that.

But Sothe only shrugs, and directs a few passing soldiers to start gutting the deer for meat. So it must be alright. This is a war; they have an army to feed; how the deer died hardly matters. She forces herself to shrug, too.

But what she can't shrug away is the raven king's shadow, which continues to loom over her during every ambush. What she can't shrug away is his gaze, which lingers on her overlong during councilmeetings, during campfires—is it her imagination? she wonders, and can't be sure. He always looks away right when she looks at him.

* * *

The first choice the war council made was to leave the stone-people be. The silent statues certainly _seemed_ deaf and blind, so they _probably_ wouldn't notice an army tromping into their homes or into their inns for a quick rest—but Yune couldn't say for sure how the petrification worked, which meant _maybe_ they were still in there, somehow, watching. Besides, while a proper roof would've been nice, their tents were plenty sturdy and their soldiers were well-used to hard travel. So they camped near villages, but not in them, never close enough to face their silent stares.

All of them agreed—except Naesala, who'd gaped at them when he'd overheard the discussion: "There's a perfectly good inn _right there_ and you're not planning to go _inside_? You lot can freeze your feathers off if you want; _I'm_ going to enjoy a damn bed."

Micaiah thought he might double back, when the ravens in his retinue balked—there was some old Kilvan legend about stone-people made them nervy—but that only made Naesala _more_ stubborn, and so each night, while the rest of them pitched their tents and built a fire, and the rest of the ravens roosted in the trees, Naesala flew to the nearest building he could find and made himself at home, stone-people or no.

Tonight, they're far from any proper village, so Naesala's choice of residence is a little hunting-lodge, which sits overlooking the rest of the camp atop a hill. The hour is late, but Micaiah can see a flicker of candlelight in its windows, which means Naesala is still awake. Which meant she can talk to him, if she wants to.

 _You've been trying to catch him alone,_ she thinks to herself. _Now is as good a time as any._

Still, it's not until she starts to shiver from the cold that she wills herself to move, hikes the hundred-something snowy steps up the hill that Naesala probably flew up in three wingbeats, and knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Naesala calls. “Unless you’re here to kill me, in which case, kindly wait to do it in my sleep, save us both some trouble—oh, it’s you.”

Micaiah stands in the door frame, blinking only a few times to adjust to the candlelight, meager though it is. Naesala blends in so well, in the dark corners of this room. It takes a moment to find him, sprawled across the bed, reading a book. He glances up, but he doesn't move his hand from the page he's on.

The man blends in too—the stone man, standing still in the opposite corner. Micaiah wishes she hadn't noticed him. She can't shake the sense that she's being watched.

"Mm?" Naesala prompts.

Micaiah takes a step inside and closes the door. “The other night. ‘Protecting my investment,’ you said. What did you mean by that?”

Naesala quirks an eyebrow. “You tell me.”

“I asked first.”

Naesala folds the book shut, sets it aside, and gestures to the chair beside him: “Come sit and I’ll tell you.”

How, Micaiah wondered, had Naesala managed to find the only hunting cabin for miles with some actual trappings of wealth? From the outside, they all look the same, but the chair Naesala's pointing at is padded with plush satin, the floor is strewn with Crimean rugs, and beside him sits a whole shelf filled with well-bound books.

She enters. She sits in the chair.

Naesala smiles. “Supposing that we don’t all die in the desert, or in that tower we’re marching towards—and I’m not planning on it, dawn-girl, I’ve got too much left to do—then there will be an _after_.” He spreads his arms: “A new Tellius, with every blood pact torn to bits. Kilvas will finally be able to stretch her wings properly. Maybe we’ll be able to get off those damn rocks we’ve been stuck to for the past few centuries. And both our nations will have grounds to extract reparations from Begnion. Two versus one sounds like good odds, hm? But in order for you to sit with me at the table, you need to be, among other things, _alive_.”

Micaiah’s frowning while he speaks—why is he telling her all this? what does this have to do with her? Until she realizes, halfway through: _he thinks she’s a sovereign_. He thinks she’s like Pelleas, or Ashnard, he thinks she’s got some _right_ to reign—

“I’m only a general, your majesty,” she says. “I don’t rule. I only serve. What Daein becomes after the war is for someone else to decide.”

“You’re kidding,” Naesala says. Then when Micaiah only frowns, he reaches out, grabs her chin, tilts it up to face him: “You _must_ be kidding. You can’t possibly believe that.”

“Why not?”

Naesala rolls his eyes, and lifts a hand to count the reasons why: “Daein’s a foundling nation who’s lost two wars out of the past three, and they spent half that time occupied by an empire they’d only _barely_ managed to break away from the first time. Their so-called king is dead, perished of stupidity, and the king before _that_ was a damn madman. You’re just going to step aside and let them, what, _sort that out?_ When you’re the only figure of note left who isn’t a war profiteer or a blatant grifter?”

Of _course_ there are others, she thinks. There’s Tauroneo, Tauroneo is a good man—but an _aging_ man, perhaps to old to accept that post. Jill, maybe. Jill’s a better fit. Her father was highborn; surely she has some practice in governance. But she’d fought _against_ her country before, she remembers, during the Mad King’s War. That might be difficult for the people to accept. Nolan, she trusted Nolan—but Nolan was just a schoolteacher before the war...

All Daein’s good people are footsoldiers and commoners. And so many of Daein’s nobles are—like Izuka, like Ashnard. Rot and more rot.

Naesala’s smile is an unhappy one. Maybe he doesn’t like this calculus anymore than she does.

“ _If_ the people make me queen—” she begins, haltingly.

“Not an _if_ ,” Naesala cuts in. “They’ll do it. I mean, provided you don’t go haring off into the sunset or whatever else you were planning to do—”

“Fine. _When_ the people make me queen.”

Naesala smiles.

“When the people make me queen— _then_ we can talk. As peers. Once I have the full power of my office.” She flashes her most condescending smile. “I can protect myself until then.”

She moves to leave. But Naesala’s hand is faster, darting to grab her wrist, pulling back the base of her glove to touch the skin beneath. She shivers—his thumb is on the pactmark, the mark she’s hardly looked at, the mark she can hardly bear to look at. And the way Naesala rubs his thumb over it is careful, intimate, too intimate—

Micaiah sees a flash of his mind. She sees herself beneath him, sees him peeling the rest of her glove off, peeling more off, sliding his fingers into her mouth—she shakes her head, _what_ , and blinks. No, no, they’re still in the room together, he’s only staring at her, but in his _mind_ , he's—

A lifetime of practice keeps her from startling. She’s picked up worse, from men’s stray thoughts, while telling their fortunes in the back alleys of Nevassa. And a lifetime of practice holds her expression still, even when she sees Naesala’s smug little smile, and she realizes, he knows who she is, he knows what she’s seeing, and he’s doing this _deliberately_. The cad.

She wonders if he’s used this little trick with the herons before, and—oh, of course, of course he has, no wonder Reyson wouldn’t say a word to him—

“Is trying to bed foreign sovereigns a common diplomatic strategy of yours, King Naesala?” she asks, every word clipped.

“Oh, no,” Naesala laughs, “that’s just personal interest. A little bonus for your consideration.”

She— _hates_ —that he’s in her mind, now, hates that he’s put that there. Which probably isn’t _unlike_ what people feel like when she does it to them, when she roots around in _their_ thoughts—but she didn’t _mean_ to, she only looked for a moment—

She pulls her hand away and moves toward the door. “Next time we do battle, stay where you’re deployed, King Naesala.”

Naesala’s grinning ear-to-ear as she shuts the door. “Of course, dawn-girl.”

* * *

She swore she'd never leave Sothe, and she held to that.

They hadn't mapped the boundaries of that, though, when they swore it. They hadn't even kissed yet; they didn't yet know what they were. They learned quickly enough—first fumbling, then eager, then inseparable—and if the rest of the Dawn Brigade didn't ask what they were to each other, it was only because it was so obvious.

But then came Pelleas.

Prince Pelleas, whose hair was just long enough to flop into his eyes when he spoke. Pelleas, who murmured his spell-words like soft prayers, calm and still even in the whorl of battle. Micaiah found herself wanting to reach out and brush away that hair, found herself watching the shape of his fingers as he wove his spells.

Pelleas, who was... not the best king, certainly. Micaiah knew that without Sothe having to tell her (which he did, often). But it wasn’t Pelleas’s fault; the problem was his heart. She’d felt the shape of so many hearts, and she’d never felt the like of his. Soft, soft as his hair, but sturdy too—like ground-doves, maybe, the little birds she remembered from Nevassa’s market, brown doves that cooed and pecked and wove between the feet of hundreds of people in a day, unharmed. Soft and resilient. He should’ve been a schoolteacher, with a heart like that, or a priest, someone who could afford to be kind. She wanted to honor that kindness, and—oh, of course it wasn't anything like what she felt for Sothe, anymore than a lamp is anything like the sun, but neither could she ignore it, not entirely, though she tried—

She thought she was hiding it. She’d been so good at hiding in so many ways for so long. But then Sothe caught her staring overlong at Pelleas, while he stood alone on a moonlit balcony in Nevassa, a month after Daein's liberation. "It's fine, you know," Sothe said. "If you'd like him."

She flushed. "I won't leave you."

"Of course you won't," he said, with a self-satisfied smirk. "That's why it's fine."

It took her a moment to infer his meaning. Longer still to believe he meant it. Even then, she held herself back. She declined Pelleas’s few fumbling invitations for a drink or a game of chess, and she ignored the pang she felt from his heart each time she said _no_. (She’d never felt the like.) She held herself upright in each of their council meetings, kept her comments careful and precise, all Dawn Maiden and nothing else. She told herself she _wanted_ nothing else—until Sothe brought it up again:

“I said I wouldn’t hold you back,” he said, with a gleam in his eye that was fond and eager. “Tell me about it after.”

She could be good to Pelleas, she finally let herself think. She would be good for him. She loved Sothe but she loved him too.

And so, when Micaiah left the castle’s library late one night, and chanced upon Pelleas pacing the great vaulted halls alone—when he turned to her with dark-rimmed eyes, and he whispered her name like a spell, like a prayer, _Micaiah_ —

She kissed him then, more gently than he’d ever been kissed, maybe more gently than he’d ever been touched at all. Nevassa was still rebuilding and the castle was only sparsely populated; at this hour, there was only silence around them. So she led him to his chambers, and laid him upon the satin sheets of the bed, kissing him and touching him and holding him beneath her, pleasing him until he nearly cried—

The morning after, she saw Sothe cast Pelleas a knowing look—a smug look. Pelleas blushed bright red, and turned and walked down another corridor entirely. Micaiah flushed, too, but Sothe's smile only brightened. Then that night, as Sothe pulled her into bed, his eyes gleaming brighter than they had when they'd defeated Jarod—he asked her what she'd done with Pelleas, so he could do the same for her, treat her as well as she did her king.

An odd arrangement they made, Micaiah with Sothe and Pelleas, when the two men were hardly on speaking terms half the time. They still had a stumbling colt of a new country to rebuild; they still butted heads constantly over how it should run. "Of course I don't really like him," Sothe said, once, by fumbling way of explanation. "But I like that _you_ like him."

So it went, Micaiah in Pelleas's bed sometimes, and sometimes not. Once, Sothe watched them. He didn't think she noticed, but she knew him so well she could recognize him just by a few footsteps, by the sound of his breath. She didn't know where, exactly, he hid so well—she just knew he was there. She didn't comment, didn't mention it later. She sensed it was better left as a space between them.

She thinks of all this now, as she thinks about Naesala. Sothe's noticed, of course. He sees where Micaiah goes at night. There are no secrets between them.

But Micaiah isn't sure how much Sothe wants to know, doesn't know if this is a space better left untouched. So she waits for Sothe to bring it up first, waits to see if he ever brings it up at all.

Which he does, finally, the next evening, while they're lying together in their tent, her head resting on Sothe's chest: “Why are you spending so much time with him?”

The _him_ is obvious. Micaiah thinks before answering, counting Sothe's heartbeats, counting his breaths. “King Naesala is thinking ahead," she says at length, "to the time after the war. He thinks—it’s speculative, of course, but—he thinks the people will want me for their queen.”

“Of course they will,” Sothe says, the same flat way Naesala did, like it’s obvious. Like it couldn't be otherwise. Micaiah flushes. How long has he thought that? is _everyone_ thinking this? are they judging her queenly character even now, even here, while she's marching twenty miles a day and covered in mud half the time and sore and frustrated and _desperate_ for an end to all this? She wishes Sothe had told her sooner—but, well, he probably thought it was obvious. She wishes it had been obvious to her, then.

Sothe’s hand closes around hers. He rubs his thumb over the back of her hand, and the great fierce restless _something_ deep inside her calms. She takes a deep breath.

"If that happens," she says, "if I accept that—role. Naesala has some ideas of what a Daein-Kilvas alliance would look like. Ideas that might make Daein better.” 

Sothe waits for the rest of it. When there’s nothing else, he scowls: “You’re telling me that’s what this is? Politics? When we haven’t even won the current war yet? Come _on_ , Micaiah."

“I didn’t know you were the kind to get jealous,” Micaiah snaps, and oh, it’s unfair, it’s stupid, she winces the second she says it, because—

“It’s not about that,” Sothe says, with fierce certainty, “you _know_ it’s not about that. Don’t try to make this about something it’s not.” He stares at her like he wants an answer. An explanation. Anything.

So she tries to answer, as best as she can: “I think I can learn something from him, Sothe. Something important. About how—Tellius works, how people work, I'm not sure."

Sothe waits for more. When she doesn't elaborate, he asks, “Can you explain any better than that?”

She thinks again. "I wish I could."

He wants to argue, she can tell. But he wants to hold her more. Which he does, hugging her closer, running his hand over her back. "Okay," he says. "Okay."

* * *

Sothe’s right, Micaiah thinks the next morning, as she wakes up beside him. Politics during peacetime would be one thing, but—now? in the middle of all this? Looking ahead is one thing, but building castles out of air is quite another. The war isn’t done yet, and—goddess forbid—may not be done for a long while yet. There’s still alliances that could shift, circumstances that could change, people who could die—

But Micaiah catches Naesala’s eye on the battlefield that day, with its sharp, too-smart gleam, and she knows that this is more than just air. Naesala’s a pragmatic man, above all. He’s not the type to place a bet too soon.

Then _why?_ she wonders, as she paces the camp that night. Why her, why now, why, why…

She doesn’t notice where she’s walking until she’s halfway there. Halfway into the village, halfway to the only cabin with a light in the window. Then she resigns herself to it. She walks the rest of the way, kicks the mud off her boots, and throws open the door:

"Why Daein?"

Naesala's there, fussing with some supplies that are strewn across the awkward table that takes up half of this little cabin-room. He turns his head when the door bangs open, chuckling. "Why what, dawn-girl? What _about_ Daein?"

“There’s eight nations in Tellius. Several of which may have interests more naturally aligned with Kilvas’s goals. Daein—” she hesitates. What she wants to say isn’t treason, but it feels like it: “Daein has held a weak position for the past three years. There’s no guarantee that position will change after the war. Why seek out this alliance in particular?”

“Oh, aesthetics, mostly,” Naesala drawls. “The whole rest of the continent thinks you lot are murderous bastards. The whole rest of the continent thinks _my_ lot are _mutinous_ bastards.” He flashes a cold smile. “We’d make quite the pair, don’t you think?”

She wants to comment on that “murderous” bit, but she catches instead on the word _pair_. “You can’t—you _can’t_ mean anything like a betrothal, surely—”

Naesala laughs. “Ha! No, of course not. My people may be—flexible, let’s say—but even they would snap at a royal marriage to a beorc. Or a half-beorc, whatever. To say nothing of how _your_ folk would respond.”

Micaiah winces at the reminder. “I wish it were different,” she says, like it’s an apology, like she can apologize for a population of hundreds of thousands, like she hasn't _stoked_ that very prejudice herself, in the name of petty tactics. “I-I want to make it different. Sothe’s right. The way Daein treats the laguz is—”

“I don’t care,” Naesala says, and he means it, she realizes with some awe. His heart is open right now, so she’d feel it if he were lying, and yet there's not so much as a twinge. Just the same bleak indifference he has for the hawks’ regard, and Begnion’s senators, and nearly everything in his world. “I’ve never needed anyone to like me to bargain with them. Whatever goals you have for Daein on that front are your own.”

 _Naesala suffers,_ Leanne had said, when she was defending him from Skrimir. _Very, very much._ Micaiah searches for that now, feeling for any twinge of anger or regret or despair, but there’s just the same frost that lies over everything in the world, now.

"Really, though, I shouldn't be telling you this. You wanted to wait until, ah, how did you put it? until you have the full power of your office? A lot could change, between now and then. Maybe I won't be interested by then." He flashes a mocking smile. “Was there something else...?”

He doesn’t move to touch her. Doesn’t even _think_ of anything lewd, this time. And why would he? He’s made himself known.

Micaiah reaches out her hand, grabs his right arm, and peels back the sleeve to show the pactmark beneath, pressing her cool fingers against it. She can sense Naesala suppressing a hiss, as she touches it, though he twists it into a smile, and meets her eyes without flinching.

"Interesting enough for you?" she whispers.

"Yes." He licks his lips, looks her over again—like he's counting the cards one last time in his head. He leans in, and Micaiah pulls forward to bridge the gap—then Naesala pulls back and smirks, keeping the distance. “What about your little shadow?” he asks, like a taunt, like a test.

“What about him?” Micaiah says, with a flash of indignance, and Naesala’s hot kiss swallows her breath before she’s even finished the sentence.


	3. Chapter 2

When Micaiah returns to her tent that night, she can't bring herself to crawl into the bedroll, not yet. Instead, she huddles into a corner, and stares at Sothe in the darkness, watching him sleep. She watches the slow up-and-down of his breathing through thick cloth, she watches the way the bits of filtered moonlight fall across his face, and she counts the strands of his hair. She must sit there a long while, because eventually Sothe stirs, noticing her as if by some sixth sense. He reaches out a sleepy hand to pull her closer, and falls just short. "What is it?"

"Remember Pelleas?" she whispers. "How it was with him?"

Sothe didn’t need to nod to show he remembered.

“Of course it doesn't have to be the same—it doesn't need to happen at all, if you don't want it, but—"

Sothe blinks and shakes his head a little, as though he’s just managed to shake the sleep away: “You slept with Naesala.”

She laughs, once, and nods.

For a moment he just looks at her, not unkindly, but strangely, as though he's struggling to fit something new into the world he thought he'd understood. "He's not like Pelleas," he says.

"Well, no. No one is."

Sothe makes an impatient noise. "I didn't mean like _that_ , just... he's dangerous, you know?"

"I'm not afraid." The unspoken addition is: so long as you're here.

Sothe grimaces. "Is it politics? He's been playing that game longer than you, Micaiah. He's got an angle."

"Of course he does."

"Then what's yours?"

It takes a long moment, for Micaiah to translate this feeling, this compulsion, into words, and the words still fall short: "I just have this feeling that I need to understand him, somehow."

It's a stupid reason, when she says it aloud, and she expects Sothe to say so. But instead, she sees his face flicker, like he's found a missing piece he'd been looking for, and though he sighs, it's not an unhappy one. "Okay, then. Sure. It's fine. I don't care."

He does care. Micaiah can feel it—a _complicated_ sort of care. It’s not masochism, not quite. Some muddy mixture of that with bravado, with intrigue, with suspicion... 

But he says, again, "Okay," with real warmth now, and reaches an arm out to pull her closer. She feels a sudden tension, one she'd been hoping for without knowing it, like the leather of the hawk's jesses, a hold that's _just_ tethering her, and there's a pleasure in testing the tautness of the rope. He kisses her on the forehead, softly, like Naesala never would, and then brushes his fingers down her neck, like Naesala might yet do.

* * *

It's a strange sort of alliance that Micaiah and Naesala forge. On the surface, little has changed. Naesala's still petulant at the council meetings, like always. But Sothe cuts in, more often than before, with deadpanned barbs, which Naesala only sometimes manages to parry—and every time it happens, he seems shocked that Sothe knows how to speak at all.

Micaiah has to force herself not to laugh. How could such a smart man underestimate Sothe?

And Micaiah doesn't need to read Sothe's mind, anymore, to know what he's feeling—the satisfied spark of someone _else_ seeing her the way he does, and the better satisfaction of standing closer to her side than him.

But by night, when she goes to Naesala on her own, it's like rolling a die—he can be so _many_ different people, and it's pure chance which one she's seeing, at any time.

The next time she visits him, Naesala is all chatter and easy camaraderie. He pours generous glasses of pilfered whiskey for both of them, which Micaiah doesn't drink. His eyes rove, but he doesn't move to touch her, just shares some stories from the Kilvan royal court. She's not sure how it's relevant to modern Daein, but she listens anyway. She wonders if he's lonely, without his ravens. She wonders if he's lonely _with_ them.

The next time he's the officious teacher, feathers flared out and gaze imperious. "I've had fifty years of official relations with your kingdom," he says, "which I suspect is more than you've had time to be _alive_. Let's even the balance, hm?"

Then he tells her—everything. Every meeting he's ever had with a previous ambassador, all the figures and trends for their imports and exports (both licit and black market), every scrap of information he'd ever known about King Ashnard, including the blood pact that king used to butcher his way to the throne. ("He couldn't have," she whispered, with that last treasonous scrap of her which had _liked_ the Mad King. Naesala rolled his eyes. "I'm not here to do the math _for_ you, dawn-girl.")

She tries to take notes, reaching for a quill and parchment by his bed, but he shakes his head. "There's only one place that's safe to keep state secrets, dawn girl. I hope you're good at memorizing."

Then another night she shows up and Naesala hardly says a word before pulling her into bed. She should protest, she thinks, this isn't just sex, she wants to _understand_ —but he nibbles on her ear in a way that makes her gasp, lets his hands linger around her collarbone, the base of her neck, and, well. He's a very quick study. Already he knows what she likes.

But beneath it all is a sense of _waiting_ —she can see it in the way Naesala watches her. He watches her the same way that falcon in Nevassa's market always watched the ground, rapt for any flitting motion, ready to pounce the moment a mouse strayed an inch too far from its hollow. He is waiting for her to inch out, she supposes, reveal some weakness. He waits a while. She's not sure what for; she has placed herself firmly in the open.

But then he blurts it out of nowhere, one night after they're both spent and lying in bed: “Your shadow’s still clinging to you.”

It takes her a moment to parse what he says. Then: “Oh, _that’s_ what you're wondering.” She stifles a laugh. "Sothe's known about this the whole time, you know. We have an arrangement.”

"Hmph." Naesala shrugs. She feels a ripple in his heart—the first time she's felt anything from him in a while. Which makes her realize, he's doing this on _purpose_ , because he was _hoping_ to break them apart—why? she wonders. Just to break things? Does he do this often? And then she remembers the way Reyson looked at him, and the way Tibarn looked at him, and—oh. A wonder the bird kings haven't all killed each other yet, she thinks, or killed _him_ at least—

After that, he's not waiting anymore. But he's still watching, every bit as much as she is watching him, trying to understand.

* * *

Naesala starts skipping out on patrols. Micaiah doesn't bother confronting him, because she thinks she knows what he'll say—scouting is the sort of thing _foot-soldiers_ do, not kings, and you can't _possibly_ expect him to waste his time. (Nevermind that he obviously moves faster and sees further than any of the other troops can.) So she preemptively rolls her eyes, and makes do with their small retinue of pegasus knights, rather than bothering to say anything.

Which is well, she thinks, until Tanith finally raises the issue at a council meeting.

"If all our pegasi are on scouting missions day and night, then they won't be rested enough to foment a defense in case of an aerial assault." She looks Micaiah in the eye: "General, I must ask why you aren't leveraging the raven laguz to properly support our reconaissance."

"I have a name, Tanith," Naesala drawls.

_Stop talking,_ Micaiah thinks, _be quiet—_

But Tanith's already shot Naesala a glare like murder. "Maybe if King Kilvas contributed his _fair share_ to our scouting efforts, he wouldn't have so much _excess energy_ to work off at night—"

"Tanith," Micaiah cuts in.

Then, Naesala: "You could've just said so, Tanith. My ravens are happy to help. Though, we'll need someone to replace us in the rear guard."

"Replace you _where_?" Tanith asks. And Micaiah turns to Naesala, too—she'd _also_ like to know the answer to that.

Naesala feigns surprise at _their_ surprise. "The rear guard? Soldiers defending the back part of the army? We've been picking off those pesky attackers from the north."

"From the _north_?" Where they had just come from—the war-decimated Daein countryside. It'd be a shock if anyone was left _alive_ there, let alone able to _fight_. "Who?" Tanith demanded. "How?"

"Only some scattered souls. I was surprised too. Apparently, the Disciples that our dear goddess picked aren't _just_ limited to Begnion. She's got her believers in Daein. Bit of a nasty trick, trying to send in all those assassin-types from behind. They're quite a pain to root out."

Tanith sputters, then falls silent. Micaiah knows she could fall silent, too, and leave it there. It would imply that _she_ had planned for this, that maybe she'd come up with this little scheme of Naesala's.

But she has to know: "Why didn't you inform of us this earlier?"

"Because I was handling it." Naesala shrugs. "You know how rumors travel in an army this small. Figured it might hurt morale if our soldiers started worrying themselves over assassins in their sleep."

It's a fine plan. Irritatingly so. Micaiah moves the meeting along, to a different question of logistics, though Naesala flies off halfway through for some purposefully-vague reason, and Tanith's glare doesn't move from her the whole time.

Afterwards, Sothe tells Micaiah, "He would do this no matter what." It's not exactly conciliatory—more like he's stating a fact he wishes weren't true. "This march is going well, we're holding our own against the Disciples easily, everything's according to plan—it's _too_ easy, so. This is him making his own entertainment. Don't let him get to you."

Micaiah raises an eyebrow. "Sounds like _someone's_ been watching him closely."

Sothe shrugs, mulish. "Like I said. The guy's dodgy. Someone's got to."

* * *

The tower's getting closer—about a month's march away.

The nights with Naesala grow stranger. The king has a manic edge to him, now. He starts quizzing her on everything he's ever told her, obscure details of dynasties so far before her time that Micaiah doesn't see how they could _possibly_ be relevant—

"Everything is relevant, dawn-girl," he hisses, with an edge that makes her flinch.

Or he pulls her into his bed the second she's closed the door behind her. Not much in-between. Not anything Micaiah can make sense of.

Sometimes he asks her his hundred questions after they've had sex, while they're lying together and she just wants to sleep. _Name all the dukes and marquesses of Daein_ , or, _tell me all the ways the previous kings failed to subdue the Garul successionists._

Like tonight. And he tosses in a new question, one he's never asked before: "Not me, of course," he drawls, "but _have_ you considered who your king consort would be?"

Micaiah arches one cool eyebrow. "Why would I need one? You seem to do a fine job reigning on your own."

"Ha. Who would take me?"

This is dangerous territory. It's a joke, but an awkward one, and barbed, too. Micaiah knows she can’t say _Leanne_ , even though it's true, because it's _too_ true, the kind of truth that Naesala, for all his devil-may-care blasé, hates to hear. ( _You hurt Leanne to hurt yourself. Without the pact you won't know who you are._ ) She tries a shrug instead.

"But in seriousness," he says, "I can name a few dukes in Crimea who would make favorable allies. You'll _need_ to break open the trade routes between your nations, if you want to keep from being swallowed up by Begnion again, and that's not a bad place to start—"

"Why not Sothe?"

Naesala laughs like she's telling an unfunny joke.

She narrows her eyes. “I won’t have Sothe leave my side.”

This surprises Naesala, which surprises Micaiah; she’s only saying what’s so true it’s not even worth bothering to say. Did he think Sothe was just some bodyguard, something to be discarded as soon as peacetime came? “What has that boy done?" he asks. "To warrant _such_ loyalty?”

The full tale would take an hour. The full tale isn't hers to tell. "I know his heart, King Naesala," she says simply. "I trust him."

She can feel Naesala’s ire, spiking so sharply it breaks through his oh-so-careful guard, making her flinch even before he rolls his eyes and snorts. “You and your _hearts_. If Pelleas were still alive you’d probably pick _him_ , wouldn’t you? What a lovely trio you’d be.”

Micaiah doesn't answer. It's all she can manage to keep her face still at the mention.

But it's not still enough. Naesala blanches as though he's read it on her face. "Ashera's grace. You really _would_. All this for some boy you _happened to fall in with_. Do you hear yourself?” His wings flare behind him. “Micaiah, you’re going to be a queen. You can do better than a gutter-rat.”

“He’s not a gutter-rat.” Her voice is level, dangerously so.

“Don’t get defensive, girl. There’s nothing wrong with gutter-rats. Kilvas built a _nation_ on scoundrels and gutter-rats. But you don’t pick one for your _king_.”

No. She's not listening to this. Micaiah’s standing before she's even consciously made the choice. She shrugs on her cloak, kicks on her boots—

“Really?” Naesala's laughing, now, high-pitched and cruel. “I didn’t take you for thin-skinned. They'll say worse at court, you know. Better to face it now."

She closes the door behind her— _closes_ it, she doesn't slam it shut. She won't give Naesala that satisfaction. But she can still hear his muffled laughter as she walks away, and in the darkness, she lets herself scowl.

* * *

It takes Micaiah a while, to untie the knots of her tent—because it's dark, and because her hands are still shaking, little bits of magic sparking from her fingers unbidden. How _dare_ he, how _dare_ —

"Sothe," Micaiah whispers, as soon as she's got the tent open, stumbling in. She hears something between a grunt and a snore in reply. "Oh, sorry. Did I wake you?"

"No," Sothe murmurs. It's a lie. But he _is_ awake now. He turns over in his bedroll to see her—or see her silhouette, probably, it's so dark. "What is it, Micaiah?"

She tries to hold her tongue. It's late, she's angry, they should just talk in the morning. But her hands are still shaking—

"What if we just left?" she blurts. "Not _now_ ," she adds, when Sothe's eyes fly open wide. "But after the war, once everyone turns back from stone. What if we just left? Traveled together, made our way with fortune-telling and odd jobs, like—like we did before." Before we lost each other.

"I'd go with you," Sothe answers, automatic. He props himself up on an elbow to face her better. "Of course I would." But he's still eying her warily, like maybe she's stave-touched or moon-mad.

"What is it?"

"I've always said that, though. I didn't even want us to get caught up in the Restoration Army. You were the one who said we owed it to Daein." He scratches his head. "Are you alright?"

Micaiah wonders if her voice is shaking, too, if that's why Sothe's eying her so strangely. And maybe she is—a little touched, maybe Naesala's gotten into her head somehow—

"I'm fine," she says. "Just thinking."

Improbably, Sothe's face softens. "Come here," he murmurs. Then again, "Come here," as he scoots aside to make a space for her. She lies next to him, and lets him fold her into his arms, snuggling into that warmth, that calm, until sleep claims her at last.

* * *

For the next week, she doesn't speak to Naesala, doesn't so much as give him a second glance, tries not to notice him at all. Once, she needs to relay an order to him, and she debates for a moment—break her silence and command him herself? or delegate? The stronger move would be the former, but—something petty rises in her, and she tells Tanith to relay the message, while she goes to check supplies in the weapons convoy again.

Sigrun overhears, and frowns—very little escapes her notice, it seems—but she says nothing. Sothe notices, and shoots Micaiah a funny look, somewhere between a reprimand and a smirk. There’s something in both of them that's petty, she thinks, deep down, some things only he would understand.

She doesn't speak to Naesala—but she _does_ look at Sothe, and finds herself trying to see him the way Naesala sees him. A gutter-rat, Naesala had called him. Unfit for the palace. A nobody.

After a few days she manages it—a little bit, sometimes. It’s like one of those optical illusions, where you squint at the picture of an old woman and try to see the young maid, and everyone sees one or the other, and they argue themselves hoarse about which one it really is. Micaiah can force herself to see a gutter-rat for a few seconds at a time, sometimes. Like when the war council convenes, and Sothe's standing among Sanaki and Skrimir and Naesala, among so many royals. He's serious and straight-backed as any of them, but he somehow looks young even next to the child-emperor, and badly misplaced. It's his posture, the way he always looks like he's _forcing_ it, uneasy so far from his favored shadows.

But then she blinks, stops squinting, looks at him with clear eyes, and all she can see is Sothe. Sothe, the young man who found her across three countries and one war. She sees the tactician makes everything simple and clear-cut when she's lost in her own head; who never loses sight of what's right. Who steadies her when her heart is flying wild. She sees him murmuring _I'd go with you, of course,_ in the darkness, barely awake but absolutely certain.

Naesala's wrong, she thinks, must be wrong. But she keeps trying. She doesn't know why she keeps trying; she doesn't _want_ to see Sothe any other way. Which is maybe why she keeps trying. So much of what she _wants_ is selfish, in the end—to run away after the war, go anywhere else, abandon Daein. What if this is just more of the same?

* * *

When she finally corners Naesala, unannounced, in the tavern where he's made his bed that night, he's lying there like he's expecting her. He's sprawled on top of the covers, reading a book, with an overstuffed chair scooted next to him, ready for her. When she enters the room, he puts the book away, and tilts his head, as if to ask: _Yes?_

“You don’t talk about Sothe.” It’s a command, stern as any of the hundreds and hundreds she’s issued on the battlefield by now.

Naesala arches an eyebrow. “Or what?”

“Or I leave.”

She doesn’t dare even blink, while Naesala looks her over, slow and careful. He’s deciding whether she’s bluffing. (She’s not.) By inches, the crooked smile fades from his face. Now he’s deciding whether he wants to push back anyway—and risk losing her, this _thing_ that’s kept him warm and distracted and spent, on all these eerie-still and silent nights.

Then at last she can feel something rising up inside him—one last little snipe, one petulant sneer, he'll try and sneak in one last insult—

“Naesala,” she interrupts, before he has the chance. “Not even _one_ word about him.”

His wings stiffen behind him. He wasn't expecting that. But: “Fine,” he spits, stretching his wings in a devil-may-care pantomime. “Have it your way, dawn girl.”

She takes one step further into the room. She watches Naesala’s face, and watches him force his expression into something resembling equanimity.

Once it’s there, he snaps his fingers like he’s summoning a maid, and points rudely at the spot in bed beside him: “So are we doing this or not?”

Micaiah inclines her head slightly, as though amused by a child’s outburst. Then she strides the rest of the distance, and sits beside him, because she didn't say _don't be rude,_ she only said _don't talk about Sothe,_ and he's holding to that. Being obedient, she thinks, with a strange thrill. There's a hard glint in his eyes as she climbs into his bed, as she pulls his clothes off and he pushes her back against the headboard—he keeps _almost_ saying things, and then stopping, like he's choking on the one word forbidden to him, _Sothe._

Naesala is rougher than he’s ever been before—pinning her to the bed when she’d rather be riding him, gripping her arms tight enough to bruise, and thrusting as though he’s trying to fuck the memory of Sothe out of her. She should be offended, annoyed, he may as well be fucking a sack of potatoes for all the regard he’s giving her. But instead she’s _fascinated_ , watching the way his face twitches from time to time, and sensing how hard he’s wrestling to keep his heart tightly closed off. Is he even _enjoying_ himself? she wonders. It takes him longer to come than it ever has before, despite all his vigor, and when he’s finally spent, there’s a savage scowl still marring his face.

“Get out,” he says, only moments later. Another child’s outburst. Micaiah only barely manages to conceal her laughter. She leaves without a word.

When she returns to her tent, Sothe stirs, with a sleepy mutter of something indiscernible, maybe _you're back_ or _how're you_. And she can’t help loving him, seeing him there—quiet, subdued, _warm_ —so she crosses the tent and kisses him on the cheek, on the forehead, then on the lips. Sothe stirs more, mutters something else, maybe _what's up_ or _morning_ , and she keeps kissing him until he's properly awake, and laughing. Naesala had called him _stone-faced_ , she thinks, in momentary wonderment, when he flashes a sleepy smile. Maybe he is stone-faced, with everyone else. But not with her, not with her.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” he says, and props himself up with an elbow, reaching out with his other hand to ruffle her hair. “What’s this about, Micaiah? What do you—”

She presses a finger against his lips, _shh_ , and he quiets. She pulls open the loose weave on the side of his bedroll, slips inside, huddles closer until she's on top of him. “What do _you_ want?” she breathes into his ear, already undoing the buttons of his nightshirt. His face lights up like he can’t believe his luck, and he laughs when she kisses his collarbone. How strange it is, she thinks, rolling in this gentle warmth after all of Naesala's brusqueness, and she wonders what it means about her, that she wants them both, while Sothe pulls her close, and whispers some soft endearment into her ear.


	4. Chapter 3

The tower is very close, now. Micaiah and Naesala meet most nights, now—because this ends, after the battle is over. This ends as soon as they leave for their nations, this _has_ to end, and Micaiah's going to wring everything from it that she can.

Without Sothe, there isn't much left for them to talk about. Just the sex. Micaiah stops Naesala, the next time she comes to him—of course she isn't going to let a tantrum pass for pleasure two nights in a row. (Maybe he wasn’t planning on it.)

But he is more pliant than she had even imagined. She strides across the room to place herself in his nicest chair, and locks his eyes with a ferocity that commands silence: "Down, Naesala," she says, spreading her legs apart.

And Naesala only smiles. “Of course,” he purrs, “anything you like.”

And he is so gentle with his tongue, so attentive to her gasps and little breaths, so attentive even to her hand, which is tangled into his hair, urging him along. He is so gentle that he brings her off once, twice, without asking a thing for himself—doesn’t breathe a single selfish word, until she tries to move to leave, and then he only murmurs, “Stay. Just for a few minutes.”

I could make him good, she thinks, huddling into his bed, letting him hold her close, and she wonders how many _others_ have thought that about Naesala. _Make him good_. She wonders how horribly they were proven wrong. There’s one, at least, she knows for sure. She would’ve had to been _headblind_ to miss the bitter pangs Reyson felt as he glanced at the raven king, even during their very brief meeting before this march. And there's more, probably, more than just him.

But not her, she thinks. The strange part of being with Naesala is how instrumental it is, how she can still see the calculations behind his eyes, and how every scrap of information he gives her ties back to trade routes, or some angle he's vying to press. And more: she marvels at how she can lie with him for any night, the next night, the night after—how she can lie with him for hours, how she can wring pleasure from him and set his toes curling and his feathers flaring—and still, still, she can will herself to feel nothing at all. She will only watch him writhing as if from a great height. Maybe this is what being a queen is: standing on these heights, at this icy remove, apart from everything.

She squints at Sothe and tries to see him otherwise. See the world the way Naesala does, and understand the heart that he never, ever opens for her. But she's not there yet, not quite, and maybe not ever.

* * *

The next day, the army manages to capture some Disciples of Order—alive. Tanith reports the news to Micaiah, her tone skeptical, even though she's only reporting exactly what she saw with her own two eyes, what her very own troops did. Every other disciple they've met has fought to the death. But not these, Tanith says. They threw their weapons down and begged parley.

"Let me talk to them," Micaiah says.

Sigrun leads her and Sothe to the far edge of the battlefield, where the Silver Army has already stripped the captives of their armor and bound their hands behind their backs. As soon as they catch sight of her, one falls to their knees, and the rest follow, five in total. Something inside her cringes at the deference—she misses, quite sharply, the laid-back camaraderie she had back in Nevassa, when it was just her and the Dawn Brigade—but she keeps her face impassive.

"Silver Maiden," one of them says, "spare us and we swear we'll never raise a spear against you or yours again. Let us go. Or keep us prisoners, if you don't trust us, just..."

Don't kill us. Right.

Micaiah hopes, of course, that they're sincere. Or chastened, at least. She can handle an enemy who knows they're beaten.

But she tries to read their hearts, and it's—impossible. Not even closed-off, not like Naesala's is, but distorted, strange, like looking at something through warped glass. She's never felt the like before. Some working of Ashera? she wonders. But Yune is silent. She doesn't know, either.

Micaiah swallows. "You were fighting in the name of the goddess, were you not?"

One of the scrawnier prisoners spits in the dirt. "I don't know anything about the goddess, really. I signed up to protect Begnion and the Empress, not... whatever this is."

"I only joined the guard a few weeks ago," another disciple says, a girl who can't be more than sixteen. "I signed up to protect Begnion and the Empress, not to do... whatever this is."

The people of Begnion _did_ rise up to overthrow the senate, for Sanaki's sake. Maybe these disciples regret not having done the same.

Miciaiah looks to her left. Sigrun is standing guard. Sweet Sigrun, waiting for whatever she decides.

She looks to her right. Sothe shifts his weight. "Maybe Ashera made a mistake," he mutters. "Maybe not all the disciples are very loyal to her. Yune doesn't seem to think she understands people very well, after all."

Maybe, Micaiah thinks. She tries reading their hearts again. Again, there's only that warped-glass feeling—something like vertigo catches her, and she puts an arm on Sothe's shoulder to steady herself.

She knows the cold calculation, the kind Naesala would make. The Silver Army isn't that large. Rations aren't easy to come by. A troop of goddess-enhanced supersoldiers may be difficult to keep under control even _with_ an adequate round-the-clock guard—which they probably couldn't spare. They're already deploying everyone down to the last man, every battle, and the fighting's only going to get harder from here.

Micaiah turns to Sigrun. And she can tell, from Sigrun's face, that she already knows what Micaiah's going to say: "Kill them."

The Holy Guards are very efficient at what they do. Micaiah only hears a little screaming as she turns and walks away.

* * *

Sothe's quiet that night. Sothe's always quiet but it's a different quiet, a dangerous quiet.

Micaiah can tell from the way he's sharpening his dagger—doing a shoddy job of it. He's well-practiced with his blades by now; normally it only takes a few minutes for him to polish a blade to his liking. But he's been going at this one for an hour, with angry chopping strokes, whaling away at a whetstone for the sake of it. Occasionally Micaiah looks up from her tome to try and read his face, but he looks away each time she tries.

She waits for him to speak, waits until the moody dissonance in his heart starts giving her a headache—"What _is_ it, Sothe?"

"Nothing." Another _shing_ of knife on whetstone.

She loves him, but—for all he's grown, and all his years at war, and for all she trusts him—he can still be such a _child_. There's something he wants to tell his general and instead he's sniveling around, sulking, saying _nothing—_

"Is it about the prisoners?" she manages, in as magnanimous of a tone as she can muster.

Sothe makes an ugly sound, somewhere between a snort and a snarl, and whirls on her. She throws her tome aside with a thrill. _Now_ Sothe is here. _Now_ they are really talking.

"It wasn't like you," he says. "Just killing them off like that."

She knows who he's talking about. The prisoners. "What would you have done?"

His answer is automatic: "The very same thing."

"Then I don't understand what's wr—"

"But," he cuts in, "I would've _thought_ about it, first, and—" He fumbles for words for a moment. "Even though that's what I would've done, it's not what _you_ would've done."

"It's what I _did_."

"That's the problem."

" _What's_ the problem?"

"Ever since we started marching. You're acting like—like—"

"Like what?"

"Like _someone I don't know._ "

She still doesn't understand. But she knows there's a hurt there, a hurt she hates to feel, and maybe she can soothe it even if she doesn't understand. "Sothe, next time I'll take your counsel, I should've—"

"Like _right now_. You're still doing it."

"Doing _what?_ "

He makes that ugly sound again, stands up, storms out. It happens so fast Micaiah barely has time to react. And when she does, she finds herself mute. What is he trying to say? What's she supposed to say back?

"I'm going on a walk," he calls, halfheartedly, when he's already ten paces away.

She lets him go. It's not their first fight, she tells herself. Not even their worst fight. They had some bitter battles, back when they were building up their Dawn Brigade from nothing, when neither of them knew what they were doing and she only knew what _had_ to be done. He'll walk, he'll blow off steam, and they'll talk later. It will be fine, she tells herself, and tries to ignore the feeling in her chest, of something suddenly come untethered, something pulling apart.

* * *

Naesala doesn't comment on the prisoners. Not directly, at least. But the next time Micaiah comes to him, there's a gleam in his eye, something improbably proud and fond that Micaiah hasn't seen before. And as they lie next to each other in the darkness, he starts talking—or babbling, more like; Micaiah can't tell if he's talking to the ceiling or to her. “Leanne doesn’t understand it,” he says. “Skrimir doesn’t. But you might.”

“Understand what?”

“That being a ruler isn’t _about_ you.” His voice is getting louder, too loud for just talking to someone lying beside him. “It's not about your principles or morals or what-have-you. It's your _people_ , and what's best for them. It's the thing I've been trying to teach you this whole time."

"Really?" Micaiah says, eying Naesala's bare chest, and the boots and pants and tunics that have been shrugged onto the floor. "That's what you call this? Teaching?"

He smiles crookedly, undeterred. "Tibarn's just lucky that his principles and actual pragmatism don't often conflict."

Micaiah opens her mouth to protest—then closes it. What is she wanting to protest, exactly? Say that, no, actually, she killed those disciples because she _wanted_ to? Say that it was a mistake?

She opts for something careful: "If we'd had a larger army, if we'd had more guards—of course I would've decided differently."

Naesala clucks his tongue. "What did I say about Tibarn? Lucky people get easy choices. But Daein's not a very lucky country, is it?"

Micaiah doesn't answer. Now she's staring at the ceiling, too.

"It gets easier the more you do it." Micaiah hadn't known Naesala's voice could sound _gentle_ , but—there it was.

* * *

Sothe has been making himself scarce. It's not the first time he's done this, just like the fight over the prisoners wasn't their first fight. Sometimes Sothe just disappears—or only _pretends_ to disappear; he's so practiced at his little subterfuges that Micaiah wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Micaiah tries not to mind when he doesn't show up for the council meeting one morning. Tanith raises an eyebrow at the absence, Naesala's got a funny crooked smile on his face, and Micaiah—Micaiah's got an army pinned between two battalions of Disciples that are marching fast, equipped with staves none of the scouts could identify, and she needs a plan _now_.

She focuses on the march, the battles, logistics. Since Naesala's no longer clinging to her in every skirmish, and since Sothe is gone, it's just her standing against the Order. She's capable of holding her own, of course, but it's like fighting with a phantom limb—the guard that's always there isn't _there_ , and her reaction to attacks from her right is flat-footed and sloppy because of it.

She hopes Sothe's only pretended to disappear. Hopes he's watching her from—somewhere, anywhere.

When he does reappear, it's in full dark—long after the camp's fire has been quenched, when a lone owl's hooting is carrying strangely on the breeze, and no one else stirs. Micaiah's winding her way through the camp, careful in the darkness, careful not to trip—

"Micaiah."

She _just_ manages not to trip. "Sothe," she says, and it takes a moment to find him—pressed against the shadow of an old battlement, cloaked in the midnight darkness. "I was just stepping... out."

Sothe glances aside, in the direction where Micaiah was walking, toward a cabin with a single glowing candle in the window, and she sees his eyes darken. "Don't let me stop you."

"Sothe?"

He says nothing.

"Sothe, what's wrong?" She feels a tug in her chest, like a tether pulled taut. Then:

“Don’t leave me before you’ve left," he says, in a rushed mutter.

"What do you mean?"

"I said, don't leave me before you've left."

“I’m not—” and then she stops, chokes on whatever she was going to say, because Sothe's gaze right now is unsteadier than she's seen in years. Stone-faced, Naesala had called him. Not now. Not right now. She sees it in his eyes, in the ever-so-slight tremble in his bottom lip, and she is afraid.

“Last time," he says, "before—before we lost each other. You were acting like this.”

The delicacy frightens her more than any shouting ever could, more than any of Sothe's outbursts ever have. This is the thing they don't talk about, the thing they desperately pretend never happened. This is what they are going to talk about.

"It's not like that," Micaiah breathes. She hates how it sounds, such a cliché line, something a quarreling couple would say in a cheap stage play. They're not like that, she's not like that—

Sothe shakes his head. "Before we lost each other, you kept looking past me like I wasn't there. For _weeks_ you were looking at me like that. I noticed it then, but I didn't know what it meant. I knew you were—convincing yourself to do something, but I didn't know what." He takes a deep breath. "You're doing it again. You're doing it now."

"I'm not, Sothe, I'm—"

" _Micaiah_ ," he says, and _there_ it is, finally—the anger, his little bottom-lip tremor coming out at last in his voice, shaking and ragged. "We _promised_ we wouldn't lie to each other. And I promised I wouldn't hold you back. Maybe that's what's happening, maybe you can't—can't just be a _person_ , now, now that you're a general and the voice of a goddess and a presumptive queen and all the rest of it. Maybe you have to throw everything else away—" He takes a deep breath, just managing to keep his voice from breaking. "But if I'm a burden now, you have to tell me."

"You're not," she breathes. "Not ever."

_Liar_ , a little voice whispers in her head. Hadn't she thought, just last night, how wonderful it was to learn how to distance herself? How she'd learned to sleep with a king while feeling nothing at all? How powerful it made her, to roost in these rocky heights, where the air was thin and cold but her view was clear for miles? Hadn't she been looking at Sothe for weeks, now, trying to see him the way Naesala saw him, tried to see him as instrumental, inessential, a disposable _thing_ —

—Ashera's grace, he really _has_ gotten into her head.

"You're right. I'm sorry."

There's a mutinous flash in Sothe's eyes. She wants to hold him, but she's afraid he might shove her away, so she just stands there, pathetic, wringing her hands.

"I can end it now," she says.

"That's not the problem," he says. "He's fine, it's the—"

"—the part where I'm shutting you out."

Sothe swallows. "Yeah."

"I didn't mean to," she said. "I swear, I didn't mean to, and I wasn't—I was _trying_ because of some idea I had, but—I can't. I care about Daein but I can't live without you."

Sothe's gaze steadies, a very little bit.

Micaiah keeps babbling. "I swear, it's not anything like what we have, I mean, if you saw it'd be obvious—if you wanted to—"

She realizes what she's saying and clamps her jaw shut.

She sounds, she’s sure, a little mad, like—like when she would tell Sothe _there’s enemies to the east_ and she had to just _trust_ that he'd believe her, because she couldn't explain it any better than that. Except then it was a goddess whispering in her ear; then it was coming from someone else entirely. Yune is nowhere nearby, and Micaiah knows this is all her, just her want, her wanting to be known, and seen, and the wild thrill running up and down her spine.

She's about to take it back, because what is she _thinking_ —except then Sothe licks his lips, and tilts his head like he's scented something tempting.

"Go on."

She can hardly believe it. "Only if you'd like it."

"Mm." His eyes are bright.

How strange, she thinks, how even after all these years, Sothe can still surprise her. The glint in his eye is hungry and dagger-bright. "Come on, then," she whispers.

So when she goes to Naesala, a shadow tails her, unnoticed in the darkness. When she opens the door, the shadow waits by the window. And when Micaiah skips the greeting, crosses the room to where Naesala sits, pushes the book out of his hands and kisses him—she can feel her shadow's eyes on her, watching, waiting, and the thrill of it makes her kiss him more deeply than she ever has before.

Naesala doesn’t object. He's used to this, he expects this, even if—

" _Awfully_ eager tonight, hm?" he asks, after he pulls back to gasp for a breath.

In answer she shrugs off her cloak, takes off her scarf, undoes her boots. Naesala grunts, annoyed. She knows he prefers to do the disrobing himself. But he's not _too_ annoyed; his eyes still rove, and brighten with every bit of cloth that falls on the floor.

Micaiah can still feel Sothe's eyes on her, from—somewhere. She doesn't dare look now, not while Naesala's watching her take off her boots, not while she's clambering into his bed, clambering atop him. He'd accused _her_ of being eager, well. She can feel his eagerness just as well, as she tugs off his pants. Naesala lets out a low hiss, as she touches him down there, and he tries out his devil-may-care grin, the one that says he's in control, that he's above all this. She'll see how long he's able to keep _that_ up. She straddles him, and rides him where he lie—

“Go _easy_ , Micaiah,” Neasala gasps, “it’s not a damn—race—”

She doesn’t go easy. She keeps going, and Naesala’s protests turn into pleased little purrs in a matter of seconds. He grips her shoulders; he starts muttering _yes yes_ and _go on_. It's hard for him to be patient, she's sure, when she knows exactly what he likes. It's so easy, getting him off, now, almost like a game—

Naesala closes his eyes.

Micaiah looks to the window. She sees Sothe's face, just barely visible in the shadows—he's such a good shadow. But he's there, and they see each other, and she smiles at him, and she sees him smile back, just as Naesala comes.

She rolls off Naesala a few moments later. She gives him a moment to rest, while she lies her head on his chest, and she feels his heartbeat slowly settle back to its usual pace. “Mm,” he mutters after a while, “you haven’t—here, let me help you—”

He reaches out for Micaiah, for her bare skin and bare thighs, but she dodges away. “No,” she whispers, not unkindly. “That’s enough for tonight.”

Naesala blinks in surprise, looking up at Micaiah. He doesn't _mean_ to be selfish, not always, at least. But Micaiah's already shrugging her robe back on, already untangling herself from the tangle of limbs and sweat-damp sheets on the bed. He frowns. Then, his gaze catches on something just _beyond_ her—

Micaiah turns her head, and follows Naesala’s gaze to the window, where Sothe’s scarf is flapping in a stray breeze. Only barely visible, but unmistakable.

The wind dies; the scarf disappears. Micaiah turns back to Naesala. She starts tying her boots.

She sees some snappy retort rise in him—maybe something like, _doesn’t he know it’s rude to stare?_ —but then she sees it die on his tongue, sees him flush with indignation, and sees him resolve to say absolutely nothing.

“Good night, King Kilvas,” she murmurs, and strides out the door, where Sothe is waiting for her.

They stumble as they rush back to their tent. "You're incredible," Sothe whispers, once they're out of earshot, and Micaiah laughs. They're tripping over everything, giddy like schoolchildren, giddy with the thrill of having done something strange and forbidden, and gotten away with it.

“Tell me where to touch you,” Sothe whispers, as soon as they stumble through the tent flap. On its face, it's a ridiculous request. Naesala may be a quick study but Sothe has known her longer. Already he's clasping her thighs, and leaning toward her neck. They've done this before. He knows what she likes.

But still Micaiah thrills to murmur, _here, like this, harder, here, here_ , and to have Sothe obey, to feel his eagerness in the deftness of his fingers, in the warmth of his breath. “Slow down,” she whispers at one point, because Sothe is so eager it's almost too much, and she doesn't want this to be quick, not like it was with Naesala. She wants to stretch the moment, and ride him while staring into his eyes. She wants their eyes on each other for every second of this. She wants to come first, with his hand pressed against her clit, to roll off him and then tease him with her hands and her lips until he begs her, _please, Micaiah, just a little more, I'm almost there_. Even going as slowly as they can, they're both spent all too soon. He pulls her close, and holds her while he waits until he's ready to start again. When she's gone too far, he always pulls her close.

And much later, in the darkness, when they've finished again, and they're tired and warm and huddled together, both on the edge of sleep, Sothe murmurs something. Micaiah can't hear it, so she asks him to repeat it, and he raises his voice just above a whisper: "You know, neither of you smiled at all, that whole time."

Micaiah laughs. "Says mister stone-faced sidekick."

"Yeah, well." And in the little sliver of moonlight that filters into their tent, she can see his smile, the smile that he only shows for her, and she feels something in her rouse and settle, content, like a wild hawk come home to roost.

* * *

The next evening, Micaiah and Sothe hold hands by the campfire. A small gesture, only an acknowledgment of what they’ve been all along—but one they’ve always avoided until now. Naesala sees it, makes sure Micaiah sees him seeing it, then rolls his eyes and sloughs away. Maybe back to his cabin, to his flask, to the stillness. Micaiah isn’t sure.

She elbows Sothe as Naesala leaves—his smug grin is a little _too_ self-satisfied. But Sothe’s smirk only broadens, and Micaiah sighs and says nothing. He’s still young, she thinks. Still has a bit of an ego about this sort of thing. Let him have this.

No one comments, though Sigrun's usual easy smile is tinged with something new, something like relief. 

The next time Micaiah finds herself alone with Naesala is days later. It’s by chance, when she's scouting ahead, to clear her head, and to get a better look at the tower—it's close enough now she can count the windows. They've already received word from the Hawk and Greil armies; they should all be gathered in just two days.

As Micaiah crests the little hill to get a better view, she almost _stumbles_ over something—someone—a raven, tearing into some rabbit on the lee side of the hill. He jumps as soon as he notices her, stumbles backwards, transforms, wipes the blood from his face, and—

"King Naesala."

He nods. "Hello, Micaiah."

He watches her like he watches—prey. Waiting for a movement, waiting for her to flush. When she stays rooted, he sighs, and relaxes his wings.

“The trouble with your little paramour,” he says, in a voice flinty with control, “is that it’s hard to corrupt someone that _boring_. Most beorc are endless pools of desire and _want_ ; I’ve tempted them away from their duties for the better part of the century with every bribe and bargain imaginable.” He casts a resentful look at the camp, as though he's spotted Sothe there. “That brat wants the only thing I can’t give him.”

“That’s your only concern, then?” Micaiah asks, tone bright—and skeptical.

Naesala scowls at the insinuation. “You presume too much, heron-girl. Heart-reading or no.” 

He's still closed himself off. So she can’t call his bluff. But his face is so frazzled that it hardly matters.

She thinks about a dozen things she _could_ say—words of assurance, words of apology, even all the petty sorts of barbs he'd doubtlessly love to use on _her_. She bites her tongue on all of them, and ventures the only thing that's worth the risk: "Talk to Leanne." Even if Naesala hates her for it, she has to try.

He doesn’t snap at her, to her surprise, just sighs and waves a hand, like he's batting away a fly: “Yeah. Sure. I'll think about it.”

He waits, like he's expecting more. Micaiah doesn't dare it. So he shrugs, and a glow seizes him—then he's raven-shaped, winging away, pushed fast by a northerly wind.

"Incorruptible, huh." Sothe appears from nowhere, and though Micaiah hadn't sensed him, neither is she surprised.

"I think that _might_ be a compliment," she teases.

"From him? I don't know about that."

She turns to face him. The wind starts to whistle. They've marched far enough south that the snow is patchy and sparse, and it's close enough to spring that ragged green shoots are pushing up from the earth here and there. A hawk soars overhead, teetering in a long lazy arc, and she's glad to see it. And she's glad to see Sothe, the wind stirring his hair, standing in full sunlight.

"Come here," he says, and Micaiah lets him pull her close.

**Author's Note:**

> There's some making-of notes [at my Dreamwidth](https://queenlua.dreamwidth.org/308436.html), for any curious souls out there.
> 
> Thanks for reading! And, if you're feelin' it: comments are always appreciated :)


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